RAB

Sirius kept watching Regulus. Enough years had passed that it felt like he was watching an apparition – here was a shadow of Regulus at eleven; here at eight – but none of it felt real. Sirius tightened the fists in his pockets and made himself look away and out of the window, where a few flakes of snow drifted past. 

“You know why I was there,” Sirius said without thinking, then abruptly realised that was completely true. Regulus was the other side. He knew about Ashen Phoenix, about their cause. It certainly looked like he was cosy enough to bloody Narcissa, who looked as if she wouldn’t hurt a fly but almost certainly had plotted out a dozen ways to poison it and get away Scot free. Sirius’ grey eyes cut to Regulus in his peripheral vision.

It was probably useless trying to explain himself, but Sirius hated to be misunderstood. “Yeah, I’m having a fucking breakdown,” he replied coldly. “Why am I repeating myself, Reg? I’m not allowed to be glad you’re…” Alive shivered on his tongue. Sirius hunched his shoulders against the cold draught.

“Whatever.” He sighed. “Obviously this was a massive mistake.” I make a lot of those. Sirius shifted his weight, his leather jacket squeaking, before he took a measured step backwards. The laces of his Doc Martens trailed in the dust on the floor. Sirius’ face was blank. “I’ll go, shall I?”

Regulus had to move. Suddenly. It had never felt like this before the cave. He remembered that before he could stand still and just count the tiles on the floor or the molding on the ceiling. Now he had to be moving. There were three steps to the window. That was better. The cold was better—though it didn’t feel the same as it used to.

He missed Sirius’ dismissal, missed that he was leaving. Instead Regulus turned around and addressed his back like it was any other normal part of a conversation, “That—scaring.” He started, stopped and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Not your style.”

Sirius was the sort to be direct about it. He was full of collateral damage but collateral damage come from a duel, an explosion—direct and personal.

You know why I was there, Sirius had said—but there were many reasons he could have been and none of them explained the bloody mess that appeared at the party.

The direct path for walking was over towards Sirius so Regulus turned, walked a couple steps to one wall, then tried the other direction. “James.” He said at last—though it might have only been moments. “Always James. I guess. It always was.”

There was something intrinsically funny about this. Really, you had to laugh. The alternative was too bloody depressing.

Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, Sirius looked down at his brother through a curtain of dark hair. It really was getting too long – Lily kept threatening to chop it all off – but his androgyny had its uses. Like now, where he could study Regulus without being told off.

Regulus looked… Well, awful was a bit strong, but it was also quite true. Regulus did look like shite. Specifically, he looked pinched, tired, and a bit wobbly, as if fatigued, or slightly drunk. Knowing Regulus (such as that was), Sirius was more inclined to think the former. 

“Doing what?” Sirius whipped back, knowing full well what Regulus was referring to. In silent apology, he lifted his eyes and studied the wallpaper peeling off the opposite wall. The apartment dripped around them. Merlin, what he’d do for a smoke.

After a protracted pause, Sirius chanced a glance downwards. He was met with a slightly baleful expression. You can’t take the Black out of the… “I wanted to talk,” Sirius replied, all deliberate cool, resisting the urge to tack on a biting, obviously. “I’ve not seen you in probably forever, then you turn up –” In a dress! “At a party I’m supposed to be – bloody hell, you just turn up, and I’m not allowed to, I don’t know, have a very minor breakdown?”

“Is this what that is?” Regulus spoke very slowly, enunciating his disbelief that this would be what tipped the scales for Sirius Black, “You’re having a minor break down?”

Where was the breakdown after he left Grimmauld Place ( Regulus knew that one--which was nowhere )? Or the one when his friend was kidnapped (and why hadn’t James turned up again? it’d been... a while). Or his traitor friend. Or any of the other fragments of utter shit that Sirius had caused or just experienced over the past several years. 

“So I turned up at a party.” Regulus repeated, rolling onto his feet and rubbing his palms against his thighs. He kept an eye on the wallpaper like if he didn’t keep one eye, one cheek, turned towards it it would reach out. “Am I supposed to believe that  Mrs Nott hand delivered an embroidered invitation for you?” He glanced over, then back to the wall. “Was it scented? The dress included?”

“If you keep doing that, I am going to bite you.” Regulus mumbled more to his knees than to Sirius who really shouldn’t have been there and yet--and yet. Regulus had used Sirius’ acceptances that they should go elsewhere to get the hell out of the party--which, if Sirius realized anything at all (and maybe he didn’t), should have lead him to understand Regulus’ innate disinterest in... well, whatever this was.

But here Sirius was. Or Sirius’ shoes were--which were a lot less appealing then the ones he (she?) had been wearing the other night.

Regulus was crying blood. Sirius registered this more slowly than he should have.

Once upon a time he would have made some remark, even if it was a joking jab, but he’d not seen his younger… brother? in Merlin knew how long, and somehow playing the concerned sibling seemed patronizing at best. Regulus had clearly made it this far; he’d bloody well survived, hadn’t he? It would make him a royal cock to start throwing his weight around as if they were still children.

Sirius tightened his smaller hands into fists and stared at Regulus instead, his frown growing with each passing moment. He was tempted to cast a notice me not charm, just to ensure they had some privacy, but that would likely have the opposite effect. People tended to notice magic in close confines. Mad Eye’s murmur filtered through his mind: The best place to be is in plain sight.

Regulus’ announcement caught him by surprise. “Wait!” Sirius blurted. A few guests glanced their way, but fortunately the ebb of conversation had risen, and somewhere distant came the sound of a small orchestra re-tuning. Panic gripped him. There were so many – Why was there never enough time –

“Don’t leave.” Gathering himself, Sirius pointedly held their gaze. A single red tear slipped down one of Regulus’ sharp cheekbones, and that, out of everything, made Sirius’ heart clench. He wet his lips, nervous now, and swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Wait,” he murmured again, “won’t you… stay awhile? And keep me company?” A plea worthy of any pureblood lady in strange company. Sirius’ pale grey eyes skipped between Regulus’ own, hoping beyond hope that he would see that Sirius wanted – needed – to talk. Just to talk.

“A familiar face,” Sirius started slowly, meaning dripping from each syllable, “goes a long way.” And if this all weren’t so utterly absurd, he’d wink.

No, the potion was holding okay. Regulus was only glad she was able to discern that without looking like she was feeling herself up but how she slowed herself down and figured it out was only better by the way that no one noticed when one tried to remember that having a cock was something hard to miss. 

So just burning eyes and disconcerting blood. At last she hadn’t tried for eyeliner. 

“Is it a familiar face?” Regulus asked and it came out harsh, a banishment worthy of Walburga Black. She locked eyes with Sirius for a long moment, suddenly wanting to grab his (her?) shoulders and push. Everything always seemed to be made to push Regulus towards one thing, towards another. Sirius was one of those forces, tripping her up when she caught sight of him at school, pulling her attention when she felt compelled to skulk around muggle street and see...

She could push him back, now, and rake her teeth across his shoulder--what would he do? What could he do? Would it be like when they were children and tussled only this time Regulus---Regulus was not so small or nervous.

But only for an instant. She tore her eyes away from Sirius’ before she could reach out, grab, act. 

“No, I don’t think so.” What was the goal if Sirius were willing to waste time with her? It couldn’t be James, then. Something else. 

Oh, she thought and it came out as a sigh. A distraction.

Because she could be used quite well for that, bloody tears and all. Leaving couldn’t even stop that--Sirius could make a scene now just as easily as thirty minuets from now. Unless... “If anything I need to clean myself up.”

four headcanon meme @daggermckinnon

Regulus knew Marcus in school. Thats not to say they were particularly close–Regulus didn’t socialize much in general or outside of Slytherin proper. Even still, it was hard to miss Marcus peppering teachers with questions over things that Regulus thought were quite obvious. Regulus might have even said so if Marcus ever asked for an opinion–not an intentional cruelty but oblivious to the potential impact. To be frank: Regulus simply did not care.

Regulus cared later–after leaving the cave, still wet and disoriented, Marcus was the first wix she came across (but not the first human, which everyone tries not to think about). Honestly, the entire first week post-cave-vampire Regulus tries not to think about overly much. Why Marcus took her in at all is a wonder. She was confused, strangely tactile, and might have tried to bite him at least once. 

Regulus was a godawful roommate to Marcus for approximately a month. Everything was just more intense. She was angry, then sad, then something else all together–where she had always managed to button up her feelings and manage it seemed like every little thing set her off instead. She got money from Kreacher, at least, which helped keep the roof but its a wonder Marcus still talks with her (she considers them friends and at this point is actually rather fond of Marcus, which probably translates to him about as well as anything does with Regulus).

four headcanon meme

Like most younger siblings, for the first several years of Regulus’ life Sirius was the end all-be-all of cool. Certainly she was fascinated by her elder cousins–but they weren’t there in the morning and only there in the afternoons on special days. Sirius was always there and while his general manner of being was stressful he was always, well, her’s in a sense. Her brother. So while he grew to be annoying, there was some ownership there as well. Hogwarts, in Regulus’ estimation, ruined that… or, more specifically James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew.

While it would be hard to call them close during their shared time at Hogwarts, Regulus took Sirius’ leaving incredibly personally. As she was never particularly skilled in making friends, even when Sirius and Regulus were...less then congenial, she sort of liked having Sirius around. If nothing else: Regulus could look right and see exactly what she should not do. At the same time, Regulus had difficulty reconciling two truths: there was nothing that she could have done to make Sirius stay and that even if she tried she would have failed. 

Regulus has always been an unreliable narrator. She’s prone to focusing on memories or situations which support some of her more anxiety based concerns and she’s largely incapable of combating them successfully on her own at this point. This means, her expectations of Sirius are a combination of her perceptions of their past interactions (which are not holistic in nature) and, very likely, assumptions based on expectations of other family member’s responses. Her expectations = / = Sirius.

Accidents Never Happen

(when the room is empty)

That had gone a little too well. Narcissa’s plan was coming off perfectly, of course, as well as she could have hoped or even better (she would have to find some little gesture she could make to both apologize and thank Gabriel for his part in it all, albeit without reveling the purpose behind it). There was only one thing she hadn’t counted on: her own reaction to all that blood.

Narcissa had never been squeamish about blood as a child (not for long, anyway) and it hadn’t occurred to her that she would care much one way or the other; it wasn’t as though blood was difficult to charm out of robes, and she’d had plenty of practice so she hadn’t even needed to be concerned for her or Lucius’s wardrobes…but oh, it wasn’t the clothes that had been the problem. It had been the way her mouth watered and her breath hitched in her throat and her pulse speeded and her fangs lengthened behind the pale pink mask of her lips.

She had needed a moment – just a moment – to get herself under control before she did something…regrettable. And since it hadn’t been the usual sort of swooning or terror or nausea or distress that a scene like what was unfolding downstairs might be expected to cause, she had needed privacy – and what better place than the lady of the house’s private boudoir? Some distant part of her brain, unaffected by the cloud of bloodlust slowly engulfing the rest of her wits, had remembered Gabriel’s gossip about Florence Nott and her blonde lover. It had seemed the perfect solution: duck into the woman’s bedroom, and if anyone caught a glimpse of pale locks and dark robes swinging through the door in all the chaos, they would doubtless assume that it was the aforementioned bit on the side they had seen and not Narcissa Malfoy. Only as she stepped away from the threshold toward a seat she realized that she was not alone.

Her first assumption – that it was the lover, taking advantage of the confusion exactly the way Narcissa had meant for the gossips to assume – was dashed by the dark locks of the other woman (Gabriel could have been wrong, but that wasn’t the sort of detail he usually botched when passing on gossip). Cissy froze, lips closing tightly over the points of her fangs, as the air left her lungs in a hungry hiss; a voice that sounded disgustingly like her own whispered in her mind that this lone witch would be the perfect vessel with which to slake her thirst. Narcissa took a slow, gliding step forward, moving like a woman in a dream…

And then she woke up. Was the woman stealing handkerchiefs? Via her unmentionable?

“What in Merlin’s name are you doing?” Narcissa blurted, before she could think better of speaking.

So far, no one had spoken to Regulus. Sure she had mumbled something downstairs to a waitress or a waiter. Certainly she had flashed a smile (or was that a grimace) to the right (wrong) people...but talking. Words. Accusations. Questions. Regulus couldn't stop her index finger from tap, tap, tapping against the vanity. 

Something crashed downstairs and Regulus jerked, eyes flying up to the mirror to lock onto Narcissa--and wasn't that just the best out of everything and every one at the party. "For the mess." It came out unclear, more mumbled then words so she cleared her throat, tilting her head back a bit as she tried again. "There's a mess. Downstairs. I'm getting them." For that.

Why not your wand? She mentally cursed herself, turning and wrapping one arm around her waist and putting the other at her wand holster. It didn't feel right, of course, nothing did. "What are you doing here? Did Florence send you?"

This part of the room wasn't too big and the noise--were people screaming? Still? Would anyone hear it if she shoved Narcissa in the closet?

Closet. She couldn't stifle a giggle. It ripped out of her and left her with a gasp of surprise and strange elation--it sounded different and she liked it. When was the last time she laughed like that?  Narcissa might know. And then she was back to thinking: Closet. Closet. Muggles and closets.